It's so very difficult for me to do the one thing I always say I will.

I always say that I'm going to be laid back and just go with the flow at work. To just let whatever everyone else thinks is best happen and then smile smuggly to myself when it all turns to crap...sort of like the entire flounder netting incident of last summer. I said only once or twice that it was a stupid idea and then left off and just went with the flow.

I don't remember how it was I did it.

Here's what happens instead:

I get all upset that we're going to do thing X in the wrong way and I fight tooth and nail with everyone, but normally especially the KOI, that thing X isn't going to work. I tell him the logic as to why it won't work and why it needs to be done the better way and I get myself all upset when he won't listen and insists on doing it his way.

Then I end up having to do it and it ends up crappy and we end up doing it my way. So I end up doing it twice, plus I end up pissy about it and everyone says how I'm such a bitch about stuff...more or less.

Not just here. I actually got fired from a job once where I was the only one who was interested in getting things done and asked for more responsibilty. My boss hired her brother instead and fired me because I was just "too much work".

Listen, I'm not saying I do everything. Some days I do next to nothing. Some days I'm going out of my mind with so much to do. I don't think I do everything and I don't think I'm the only one who knows what I'm doing. Far from it. I'm just saying that there are things that make sense and there are things that don't and it seems like more often than not the KOI wants to do the thing that doesn't make sense.

Also, if say, The Evil Dr. or Dobie have a good idea the KOI will reject it naturally. He always says NO first. It's a running joke around here. This wastes an enourmous amount of time, because eventually he'll come back and say yes, but now it's because he said so and not because someone else had a brilliant idea. This frustrates me and I'll tell him so, I'll get wound up and pissed off and aggrivated that we can't just get on with it.

Over the long weekend I did some thinking and I decided to make an effort to go with the flow this week. I always say I will, and I wanted to really try.

I was here less than 10 minutes and I was in a heated (freindly, but heated) debate with Dobie about how what we're doing with one of our major projects is masturbation. It's going to come to absolutely nothing and suck up a major amount of our time and resources. I was really getting aggitated about it.

I can't belive I let myself get sucked in so quickly.

Here's the other part to that whole thing. When I get very into it, and upset about it, the KOI and I will end up in an arguement. He will be angry at me because I'm passionate about what we do. My BOSS is MAD at me for wanting to get things done and having an opinion about it.

So what will invariably happen is I will tell him, okay, you're right, we'll do it your way. I will tell him that I don't know why I get so upset, it's not my money, or my reputation in the end, it's his and this places. I tell him that I'll just do what he wants because that's what I get paid to do.

Nothing upsets the KOI more than when I tell him I'm going to just do things his way. Even when I tell him this in a completely non-snarky way. I sat him down the end of last week and told him that I need to calm myself. That I need to not be so emotionally invested in the decisions we make. I explained patiently that this didn't mean that I wouldn't have input or make suggestions but simply that I wouldn't make myself crazy when I didn't think things were being done right.

He got pissed. He loves me riled up and pissed off. It saves him having to do it.

On Valentines Day I got flowers from the KOI. This isn't the first valentines day that I've gotten flowers from him, but the others were delivered in person when we were together. This time, no, he had them delivered to my house. Beautiful pink and purple flowers with a card that read: "For all you do, you are appreciated. KOI."

Lovely right?

No. This was like saying...yes, yes, we appreciate you, now quit whining.

I was annoyed. I turned to a family member and remarked, "He's trying to make me be nice to him for awhile."

I called him and thanked him in the most sincere way I could and he said:

"Well...I know we haven't been on the same wavelength alot lately and I figured something had to make you happy for one day anyway."

Yes.

Yes KOI, that's what the problem has been all along. It hasn't been your lack of time spent doing your job, it hasn't been that you set deadlines and then allow people to shit all over them, it hasn't been that you can't order a single fucking thing for yourself yet the only thing even you claim to do for us is order stuff...no, it was just that I don't get pink daisies delivered to me often enough.

Of course.

Then, when I tell him what a surprise it was to see it was him who had sent them (on valentines day, let's remember) he actually said the following:

"I knew you'd be surprised, I knew you'd be thinking, who would send ME flowers today?"

As if there weren't the slightest possiblity that I might receive flowers from anyone else on valentines day.

It didn't even occur to him what an insult that was.

Dobie's birthday is this week. I had been going back and forth between which of his favorite desserts to make for him. Dobie's not much for chocolate so usually I'll make him molassass cookies, or butterrum cake, or popcorn balls. I always try to make something for everyone's birthday around here. If I know the birthday, I try to do something, a card, a little something, even if it's just a small thing, something to acknowlege a special day.

Last night I decided that I won't make anything for Dobie's birthday. It occured to me that in the four birthday's I've spent here only once has even a small mention of my birthday been made. Also, not one person from this particular place (the building I'm in, not the institution as a whole) wished me a merry christmas this year.

If there is a meeting the Evil Dr. or I will try to bring donuts or chocolates or something. Dobie will always eat the bulk of whatever it is, but not once has he brought anything to the table.

I enjoy making things nice and special for people when I can. I don't do it for reciprocation, but at the same time, there comes a time when you see that no matter what you do all they hear is the screaming and you begin to realize that it's only the screaming that gets recognized, remembered, and acted upon.

So either you end up screaming all the time, or you just stop trying at all.